Winchesters They Have Known
by StillWaters1
Summary: A series of outside POVs on the Winchester brothers by episodic characters remembering Sam and Dean in light of the newscasts in 7x06. Complete for now.
1. The Benders

Title: Winchesters They Have Known

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Supernatural

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: A series of one-shot outside POVs on the Winchester brothers by episodic characters remembering Sam and Dean in light of the newscasts in 7x06. Open to requests.

Notes: This series stems from my story "It Wasn't Them", which looked at episodic characters in 1x01 - 1x07 comparing the Sam and Dean they had known to the Leviathan!Winchesters on the news in 7x06 (Slash Fiction). I got several requests to do an expanded series, and since I am a sucker for outside POV on the brothers, I decided to give it a shot. Each chapter will be a self-contained one-shot based around one character from one episode, who sees the news in 7x06 and remembers their experience with Sam and Dean. Unlike "It Wasn't Them", I will not be doing as much direct comparison between the actions of the Leviathan!Winchesters and the real Sam and Dean – this series will largely use the news in 7x06 as a springboard to the episodic character recalling their time with the brothers, and how what they saw in Sam and Dean's interactions with the character, and with each other, defined the brothers' relationship and the kind of people they are. I hope I do them all justice. I have yet to determine a length for this series and it is open to requests. If there is a particular character or episode you would like to see, just leave me a note in a review, or send me a PM and I'd be happy to explore it. Dialogue taken from the episodes is presented in full quotes. Thank you for reading and thank you to those reviewers I am unable to respond to personally via private message. I truly appreciate your support.

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><p><span>1x15 (The Benders) – Kathleen, Hibbing County, MN Sheriff's Deputy<span>

Every year, Kathleen marked her brother's birthday by placing a black Mustang on his headstone – a seemingly odd tradition in a graveyard filled with flowers and small stones atop Hebrew-lined marble, but _her_ tradition all the same. Riley had loved that damn car, and so every year she placed a new, shiny toy car on his marker, in memory of the one the Benders had taken when they took Riley from her life. She was on her way to the cemetery that morning when she saw the news, footage of Sam and Dean Winchester shooting up a diner in St. Louis and demanding that the world know what they were capable of. But she had met Sam Winchester and his 'cousin' 'Officer Gregory Washington' several years ago and while she had no doubts the Winchesters could be as deadly as the rifles with which they shared a name, she also knew that they weren't the senseless, exhibitionist killers the TV proclaimed them to be. She may have only been with them for a brief time, but it had been long enough to know that what they were _capable_ of paled in comparison to what they _were_. That it was what they _didn't say_ that really mattered.

Because it was impossible to watch them together and not know the truth.

Kathleen had her doubts about Officer Washington's identity from the moment she met him, but something about the way he talked about Sam Winchester struck a chord with her, one she wouldn't truly understand until she saw them together and realized who Gregory was. She had always believed that the truth of a person could be found in their eyes and when this 'Gregory' talked about family, his eyes mirrored something Kathleen had seen in her own through years of being a big sister. When Gregory told her, "Officer, look – he's family. I kinda look out for the kid. You've gotta let me go with you", there had been nothing but honesty and raw need in his eyes. And when she hadn't been able to lie in response to Gregory's question about the county's large number of missing persons and whether any of them came back, the young man's resulting, "Sam's my responsibility and he's comin' back. I'm bringin' him back" had been heartbreaking in its firmness – yet there was no sign of bravado in those words.

Only promise.

When the squad car's computer verified that she was indeed _not_ working a case with Officer Washington, Kathleen hadn't really been surprised, yet she also hadn't been particularly worried, even as she found herself alone in the car on the side of a dark road with a man who could have been _anyone_. Because she had seen something in his eyes back when she first met him, something that steadied her as she went through the motions of proper procedure. When the young man's first concern after being caught on identity theft was to plead with her to let him find Sam first, Kathleen saw a continuation of what had been in his eyes as he talked about family in the office. As she said, "I don't even know who you are", part of her already suspected the truth, and when she finished with an almost blasphemous suggestion that Sam might not even be missing, it was like the young man read her reliance on people's eyes and brought it right into the open, challenging her to, "look into my eyes and tell me if I'm lyin' about this."

And she knew he wasn't.

Kathleen had known a lot of cons, a lot of evil, manipulative people, but she knew eyes, knew truth when she saw it, and while he may have been lying about his name and credentials, she knew that he was far from lying, would _never_ lie, about Sam Winchester being in danger. Then he talked about when he was young, how he pulled Sam from a fire and had felt responsible for keeping him safe ever since, of his fear that if they didn't find Sam soon, they never would, beseeching her, "please, he's my family", his voice breaking, the choked plea of the child he had once been. With those words, she knew she had to help him, that she was _going_ to help him, but she still went through the motions of protocol, of needing to take him in - maybe as a test…..or maybe because it hurt too much to realize what horrific connection she had with this desperate young man's search. So she told him she _had_ to bring him in….. and watched his face fall into a crushing mix of terror, preemptive loss, and unimaginable grief. And it was that moment, as she looked from his face up to the picture of her and Riley, that she knew, without a doubt, that she was sitting next to Dean Winchester, allegedly deceased murderer, and Sam Winchester's protective, terrified big brother.

And she knew which one to believe.

Which one _mattered_.

Because words couldn't describe the cautious relief that swept through the car when she told Dean that they would find Sam first.

It was in response to Dean's confused question as to why she was helping him, that she told him the truth about their unspoken connection, even as she didn't let on that she knew who he really was. She told him about Riley, how he had disappeared three years ago just like Sam, about how she knew what it was like to feel responsible for someone and for them to be….. 'gone' – a word she had been unable to bring herself to say in front of him. Those green eyes had responded to her confession with understanding, sympathy, and a sort of… renewed respect, a look that she couldn't quite place.

And then she found Sam – after cuffing Dean to her car, being knocked unconscious by inbred lunatics, and waking up in a cage.

Kathleen's first introduction to Sam Winchester was the young man asking if she was all right. The very same young man who had apparently been locked in a cage for as long as he'd been missing, inquiring as to a complete stranger's health as she found herself in the same position. When she confirmed his identity and told him his 'cousin' was looking for him, the relief in his breathy "thank God" was palpable as he immediately transitioned into asking where his 'cousin' was - a natural progression, as if it was always his first question regardless of the situation. When the barn door creaked open soon after, she cowered back, looking fearfully at Sam, not knowing what to expect, but there was no fear in Sam's eyes – at first she thought it was because he had already seen their captors and knew what to expect – but then she realized his eyes were narrowed slightly in concentration, that he was listening to the steps, to the movement, as if recognizing patterns in a familiar presence.

And then she saw them together, and her heart ached for what she had lost. Because when Dean noticed the cages, his "Sam?" as he rushed at the bars was a rough, hopeful prayer. And Sam broke into a youthful, relieved smile, completely relaxed, as if it didn't matter that he was still locked in a cage by crazy backwoods lunatics – his 'cousin', his _brother_, was there, and everything was all right. When Dean punctuated his "damn, it's good to see you" by banging his hand against Sam's cage, Kathleen watched Dean visibly breathe again, while simultaneously shivering at an unconscious understanding of how different that bang could have been had Dean found Sam anything other than alive and unhurt.

Then came the conversation. When she asked Dean how he got out of the cuffs, she saw some of the dangerous Winchester in his response, and realized that the "tricks" he knew were part of a larger training, something to fear under the right circumstances. Then she listened to him and Sam talking – but the fact that they were talking about this mess like it was a case, as if it was perfectly natural to be in these kinds of situations with potentially non-human perpetrators….it all paled in comparison to the way they smoothly fell into the comfort of each other's presence. She listened to familiar brotherly teasing about Sam getting rusty…and realized that Dean wasn't the only one who had been trained in his last name. Then Dean confirmed Riley's car and by extension, what had happened, and that brotherhood suddenly focused directly on _her_ – she felt the depth of Dean's "I'm sorry" as he realized it was her brother's car, felt Sam's confused, yet sad eyes as he glanced from her to Dean for confirmation, felt Sam and Dean look at each other guiltily in their relief that it hadn't ended the same way for them. And then Dean was off, to get them out, and Sam's "hey, be careful" was soft, practiced, urgent…..and pure worried little brother.

When the final fight began, Kathleen watched Sam live up to his and Dean's name, as he swiftly disarmed the Bender, taking the rifle and handling the weapon like he was born to it. The way he turned the game against the backwoods family – cutting the fuses, separating the men and taking them out one at a time - suggested an unparalleled strategic training. And when he saved her life and stood back to allow her to take up the rifle and guard the injured father, she saw the caring soul underneath all the ingrained militaristic skill. She saw the sadness in Sam's eyes as she told him to go ahead to the house, saw the fleeting hope that she wouldn't kill the injured man, yet also saw an equal understanding, one that said, were their positions reversed, he'd consider doing the same thing. That _Dean_ would likely have done the same thing. And it was that understanding, coupled with the need to find his brother, that sent him to the house.

She looked down her surprisingly steady rifle to that backwoods bastard, who then had the _nerve_ to threaten her for harming his family, only to laugh at the joy he took in destroying her own. Her grief surged, warring with shocked rage. Because this son of a bitch didn't know what family_ was_. His eyes were cold when he said that word; they weren't swimming with need and emotion beyond words like Dean's had when looking for Sam, like Sam's had upon seeing Dean again. This so-called man had delighted in breaking her family when Sam and Dean had mourned her loss, even as they just met her. So, for the first time in her career, she shot an injured, unarmed suspect. Without thought.

And didn't regret a thing.

When she told Sam and Dean that the father had been "shot trying to escape", the two of them looked at each other, sad, yet knowingly, and she knew for sure at that moment they would have done the same, if not worse, for each other. She was touched when Dean paused before starting his walk back to town and apologized for the loss of her brother - it meant more than words could say because she knew that Dean _got_ it; that family meant more to him than anyone would ever know – she had seen the fear in his eyes at the thought that she wouldn't let him continue to search for Sam, had seen the two of them look at each other in joyous relief in the darkened barn – and she knew that they were brothers with a bond far deeper than the one she and Riley had been blessed with. She thanked him for his sympathy and when she told him that it actually didn't hurt any less knowing what had happened, she saw the understanding in his face, saw Dean look to Sam, a hint of mirrored devastation in his eyes, at what could have been. Kathleen read it in every line on Dean's face - that while he had known his chances of finding Sam at _all_, let alone _alive_, were minimal, he had never truly prepared himself for either of those ends – and that, had one of those horrors come to be, Kathleen would have seen an entirely different Dean Winchester in that cage-filled barn. One far more dangerous than his name. But then she saw, again, a depth of respect within Dean's sorrow for her and her brother….and suddenly understood what that look had meant earlier that day. Dean was _impressed_ – that she had been able to survive three years of missing brother and no answers, and now that she could go on living knowing her brother was dead. And she felt a shudder at that tacit admission - that this young man, a trained weapon with a weapon's last name, _knew_ he wouldn't have survived the same end with Sam. She watched them walk off in the rain, noted the closeness of their shoulders, the teasing shoves….and her heart both sank for what she had lost and sang for what she saw those two regain.

The memories were gently dispersed by the sun-warmed morning air sweeping past her face as she walked up to Riley's grave, the cool metal of the little black toy car in her hands. It was almost funny how the news hadn't made her fear the Winchesters and what they _could_ be; that instead, it had only reminded her of Sam and Dean and what she had seen that they _were_. So as she began her birthday ritual for her beloved brother, she thought of two more brothers, ones who had fought the odds and stayed together. Of two sets of eyes filled with love and devotion, two strangers who had mourned her loss even as they celebrated their victory over that very same loss.

She remembered Sam and Dean - everything they said and didn't say; every look and wordless action that made them who they were – to her, and to each other.

Because _that_ was what mattered.


	2. The Usual Suspects

Title: Winchesters They Have Known

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Supernatural

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: A series of one-shot outside POVs on the Winchester brothers by episodic characters remembering Sam and Dean in light of the newscasts in 7x06. Open to requests.

Notes: I never realized just how many scenes Diana Ballard is in with Sam and Dean in "The Usual Suspects" until I ended up with four pages of character interaction notes and this seven page chapter. There was so much going on here to explore – I hope I was able to do it credit. Dialogue taken from the episode is presented in full quotes. Full series notes can be found in the first chapter. Thank you for reading and thank you to those reviewers I am unable to respond to personally via private message. I truly appreciate your support.

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><p><span>2x07 (The Usual Suspects) – Detective Diana Ballard, Baltimore PD<span>

Ever since she had let Sam and Dean "escape" over five years ago, Diana had made a personal case of trying to keep up with the Winchester brothers, watching the internal law enforcement channels for any news of them. When she had seen the FBI's notice regarding their deaths in a chopper explosion in Colorado in '08 she hadn't believed it, her gut telling her it was just another improvisation to enable them to keep doing what they did. So when she saw the news, almost three years later, showing Sam and Dean massacring dozens of innocent people in a St. Louis diner, she wasn't surprised to see them, but she also knew that she wasn't looking at _them_. In the brief time she knew Sam and Dean, Diana had gotten a glimpse of the existence of vengeful spirits and death omens, and had heard briefly about shape shifters and how they could take on someone's appearance well enough to get the real person accused of St. Louis murders. Diana figured she was seeing two of those shape shifters for the first time on TV because, what she now knew about the supernatural notwithstanding, she had learned enough about those two guys to know that while they certainly had the knowledge and skills to be highly dangerous in the right circumstances, they were not killers; they wouldn't destroy innocent life, especially not in front of cameras while demanding that the world take note. Not when they saved her life without question, and still offered themselves for arrest afterwards. Those boys were also a lot smarter than most people realized – certainly smart enough not to go back to St. Louis, no matter how old those original murder charges against Dean were. They knew how to improvise, how to lay low, and they would never put themselves in a highly visible position like this, one that basically challenged law enforcement and renegade civilians to separate them from one another, whether through lifelong imprisonment or violent death. Because she saw their anguish when pulled apart, their relief at being reunited…..

…And saw them save her life through both.

Diana first met Sam on the echo of a fully equipped SWAT team bursting down his motel room door. She walked through the officers to find the young man standing near one of the beds, arms raised, blinking against flashlights and the single laser sight on his chest challenging him to move. Her first words to him were a challenge all their own as she drily asked, "goin' somewhere, Sam?" Words that were followed by her first glimpse of layered Winchester personas as Sam's face fell, scrunched like a little lost 6'4" kid, curling the fingers of his casted right wrist, his eyes flashing through several rapid emotions. She saw worry, but not the kind of worry that was usually prominent in a guilty person caught staring down the barrels of a dozen automatic weapons. It was something deeper, a worry beyond concern for himself, mixed with a flare of something that almost looked like disgust - as if she had insulted him by implying that he would leave town without his brother.

When she entered the interrogation room after his arrest, she found Sam looking pensively out the window, deep in thought, before he shifted and immediately pegged her as the "good cop" while not seeming particularly surprised to find that Pete, the "bad cop" was with his brother. But that little flash of worry was there again, even as he held his arms wide, taking advantage of his larger size and filling his space in the room. Diana continued her routine, hoping to cut him down as she started running through his personal history, and saw him wordlessly transition again - another layer, almost another _person_. He quieted, shifting on his feet and curling his casted fingers restlessly, before moving to the corner, where he leaned against the cold wall and hunched in on himself, arms crossed, face pained as he glanced out the window again, then down at the floor. He looked anywhere but at her, appearing small and hurt, his casted wrist prominent against his rolled up sleeves, his grief and insistence that he needed time to deal with his girlfriend's death raw and true. But then he transitioned again, moving smoothly from a sad, lost little brother, to a trained, sarcastic professional, as he scoffed about seeing the second largest ball of twine in the U.S., flipping a chair around to straddle it, facing her with an open challenge even as he brought himself down so that her face now towered over his. She had seen a lot of well-trained cons in her day, but something about the constantly shifting layers of this kid's personality struck her, an observation she carefully kept from her face. He drew on law knowledge far beyond a college education as he refuted her claims about Dean's fingerprints and when she tried to frighten him with the threat of running his own prints, the sarcasm surged as he banged his casted wrist against the table in a punctuated challenge, not even flinching at the pain that action must have caused. But while she was beginning to see that there was a lot more to Sam Winchester than met the eye, and that there probably _was_ reason to fear him, she found that she didn't - and she had been in this field way too long for it to be naïveté. She watched him suspiciously sniff his coffee, as if he had legitimate, experienced reasons to worry about being drugged, and found that she was actually completely honest when, as the next part of her "good cop" routine, she told him, "Sam, you seem like a good kid." Something about this whole case hadn't seemed right from the moment Dean was picked up and Pete latched onto the two brothers' history like a drowning man to a life raft, but she was a professional and she did her job, which called for her to try and warm Sam up, to get what they needed. But as she went through the practiced motions, she felt that there was something much more to this young man who so easily moved from vulnerable to formidable. A feeling that solidified when she tried to get Sam to flip, and saw more of the motel's affronted disbelief, along with a hint of pained disgust as he finally looked her in the eye and asked in a small, broken, incredulous voice, "you want me to turn against my own brother?" And there was her very first hint of what it all came down to for these guys. Because he played his part to the hilt, tears in his eyes as he lied his way through the exact mirror of Dean's story, and when she called him out on his bullshit and informed him, "your brother left you – to go murder Karen," Sam had been very calm in informing her that Dean didn't kill anyone – yet underneath those words, there had been something more, as if Sam was silently projecting that, if she was suggesting Dean would have left him, _period_ – she knew absolutely_ nothing_ about him or his brother.

As she walked out of Sam's room, Diana's unease with the whole situation doubled as her gut churned, adding Sam's words and body language to her own previous, unfounded doubts. She had no doubt these two were involved in illegal activities, but she didn't think they were who Pete was saying they were, or even who the St. Louis police thought they were. She tried to tell Pete how she felt, relying on protocol and professional jargon, talking about how they had nothing but a lot of circumstantial evidence if Sam didn't flip against Dean, how the fact that there was no murder weapon or motive really bothered her, how this made no sense in their combined experience, and how a jury would _have_ to see reasonable doubt, because _she _felt so much of that same doubt already. But when Pete asked her, "Diana, do _you_ have reasonable doubt?" she hadn't been able to respond, hadn't been able to tell him that she was filled with doubt that went far beyond just the Winchesters. She tried to empathize with Pete, about how she knew that Tony Giles was a friend, and that he wanted to clean this mess up quickly, but that, as a defense attorney, Tony had known a lot of potential murderers with a lot more motive than Dean Winchester. But Pete just kept focusing on how he knew he had the right guy, how sure he was of a conviction, and how everything was as it should be. So she had listened, but when she walked away from their kiss and refocused on the case, the doubt was still there.

And then Dean confessed. Diana could feel Pete's victory, his excitement as he directed the camera operator and instructed Dean, his gloating at the lawyer's half-hearted attempt to stop Dean from continuing. She stood in the corner, unsure about his guilt since he had been arrested, still seeing the worry in Sam's eyes and the quiet certainty of Dean's innocence in his voice, all of it mixing with the computer malfunction she had earlier and the chill she got when "danashulps" began running down her screen. It seemed too coincidental with the appearance of this case and of Sam and Dean in the station and it worried at the back of her mind, even as she didn't yet understand its connection and significance. She was rightly surprised by Dean's "confession" regarding interrupted investigations, vengeful spirits and communicating through the veil, but her initial "excuse me?" wasn't so much anger as it was surprise, along with an underlying interest and hope, that her unfounded belief in these guys, her doubt about this whole case, might finally gain some light. She could feel Pete's rising anger even as she kept listening, and when Dean held up the paper with "dana shulps" on it and began talking about anagrams and street names, Diana felt a flutter of fear as her unease and doubt began to coalesce into something still muddy, but no longer unfounded. When she pulled Pete off of Dean, part of it was to prevent Pete from assaulting a suspect and destroying his own case, but part of it was also to protect Dean, because she believed her gut more and more with those two. And when she found Dean's note in Sam's vacant room, and explained the significance of "Hilts" and "McQueen" to Pete's astonished wonder at how Sam had bypassed that several story drop from the window, she recalled Sam looking out the window of that very room earlier, a canvass and risk assessment disguised as brooding worry, and her shake of the head and sighed, "these two guys" as she held the note out to Pete was only partly the frustration of a law enforcement officer who had underestimated their suspect. She couldn't help her little wave of pride and relief.

And then everything changed. A bathroom with running sinks, "danashulps" written in fogged mirrors, the chill of another presence, and the sight of a pale-skinned, red-eyed young woman with a deeply slit throat trying to talk to her. Between that moment and the computer earlier, Diana truly feared for her sanity, but found her feet bringing her directly to Dean Winchester. Because she knew she needed more information, knew that something was going on beyond her expertise, and knew enough to seek help when she was in over her head. She tried to reassure herself more than anything by telling Dean, "let's pretend for the moment, that you're not entirely insane." And damn, if Dean's tilt of the head, raised eyebrows, and quiet "hmm" weren't a practiced trifecta, the weary actions of a man who had been accused of the very same thing numerous times before and wasn't expecting to be believed at all. But then Dean suddenly focused, sobering instantly as he saw the bruises on her wrists that she herself hadn't even noticed. Keen eyes, practiced ears, and a quick mind put it all together and began seeking more information, confirming that she saw the spirit, then launching into questions as routine as any investigator, trying to put together what he was dealing with. As she turned to the two way mirror in shock, he reassured her, "I know – you think you're going crazy", as if he had walked people through this very moment countless times in his life, before he quickly moved on, informing her that her life was in danger and letting her balk at the perceived threat for a split second before leaning forward, serious as he told her, "you need to go to Sam – he'll help." Diana was baffled that this alleged murderer sounded like he was sincerely trying to keep her alive, even as she was part of the reason he was cuffed to a table and separated from his brother. Maybe she needed the comfort of something she was familiar with as the world shifted around her, because she immediately found herself thinking like a cop as she incredulously informed him that he was giving Sam up. There was a flash of something in Dean's eyes before he continued smoothly, talking about "great escapesque" contingency plans for separation, about motels and Yellow Pages, and looking for Jim Rockford, but even as part of her wondered what kind of lives they had, that they needed such plans, she still didn't realize what Dean was really telling her. It was when Dean finished with, "you can arrest him if you want, or you can let him save your life" that she finally got it. Because there it was. That flash in Dean's eyes when she practically accused him of giving up his brother? It was the same look that went through Sam's when he turned pained, disbelieving eyes on her and asked, incredulously, if she wanted him to turn on his own brother. Dean wasn't giving Sam up – he was giving her life to Sam's hands. Dean knew Sam could help her, knew Sam would _want_ to help as much as Dean did, to keep her alive, even though she was keeping them apart. Maybe, as she had felt something different in the Winchesters from the moment Pete grabbed this case, Dean saw something different in her too. Because this was Dean trusting her – trusting her not to hurt Sam, to do the right thing by his brother, to let him help without putting their togetherness in any further jeopardy. She had a feeling very few ever heard of their Jim Rockford plans. So she took that trust to heart, beginning to see that her gut feeling about these guys was more and more right. More than she ever thought possible.

When Diana reached the motel, Sam's initial worry and surprise quickly passed as he let her in, knowing that Dean had sent her, which meant she needed help - all that mattered, despite the fact that she had left Dean handcuffed in an interrogation room. Sam examined her wrists and launched into the same investigative questions Dean had, practiced and easy. He listened, accustomed as Dean had been, as she insisted she should be arresting him and that she was losing her mind. He stepped back, arms spread again as he had done in the interrogation room, taking full advantage of his significant height over her, informing her, without ever raising his voice, that she could arrest him later, after she lived through it. And when she finally let go and nodded, he softened, voice still quiet and empathetic as he sat down, bringing his eyes to her level to make her comfortable, as he began gathering the information he needed, just as she had run so many cases in her career. His smile and sheepish "you have your job, I have mine" when she asked how he got the crime scene and booking photos was young and boyish, but there was something else just under the surface, another of the innumerable layers she had seen with him, and she realized, again, that she had no idea what these two guys really knew and what they could do – but she _did_ know that she was in more danger _without_ them than she was _with_ them.

Despite Sam's casual remark about needing to go find Claire's body to salt and burn the remains in order to put the spirit to rest, Diana still felt comfortable going with him to Ashland Street to look for whatever signs it was that he was looking for. When Claire showed up again and tried to talk to her, Sam immediately responded to her calls and rushed to her side, asking if the spirit had attacked her, worried about her safety even as he was uncomfortably working without his usual partner, no thanks to Diana and hers. When they found their mystery word and the EMF meter went off at the wall, the eyes that looked back at her were knowing, yet sad. Eyes that had known Claire would be there, but still mourned the impending truth of her loss. The same eyes that had mourned Jessica Moore and bristled at accusations against his brother's name.

Sam struggled with the case as he broke down the wall, stating, as if he only had to say it out loud because his usual partner wasn't there to read it in his silence and actions, that something was bothering him. He shrugged off the strangeness of digging up a corpse as par for the course before explaining the oddness of a vengeful spirit leading someone to their remains – a trained hunter and investigator carefully working over a problem, trying to understand new patterns and work it all out. She recalled Dean's similar insight in putting together her whole story in the interrogation room, and wondered when they had learned all this, and from whom. Then she helped Sam pull a body from the wall and found, along with a familiar necklace, the truth behind the sour feeling in her gut ever since Pete had grabbed this case. The feeling that Sam and Dean were scapegoats for something beyond their control. Sam's eyes brightened as he put it all together, the joy of solving a tough puzzle, as he talked about death omens, how they tried to warn people and seek justice for their deaths. Sam and Diana both knew who Claire was implicating, but Sam was still gentle, ducking his head and licking his lips, not wanting to have to ask her to speak against her partner, even as Diana and Pete had been trying to get him to do the same thing to Dean. His "Detective, how much do you know about your partner?" was gentle, empathetic, and sorry, even as they both knew the truth. Diana put it all together, a year's worth of doubts, and told him everything she had been suspecting since Sam and Dean came into the station.

On the way to get Dean, Diana saw the flare of panic in Sam's eyes as she learned that Pete had taken Dean to "transfer him." But, unlike her disgust and disbelief, Sam's clear head came through as, despite his obvious worry about his brother, he reminded her that Pete's county vehicle could be tracked. Once they reached that desolate stretch of road, Diana's focus was on Pete and the threat he posed as he held his gun over a chained suspect on the ground in the middle of nowhere. Yet, even as she worked on getting Pete to admit to the truth she had already reasoned out, while simultaneously trying to keep him from shooting Dean, she could feel Sam behind her, tense with worry and the need to do _something_ and she saw, out of the corner of her eye, an entire, nonverbal conversation pass between the two brothers. She saw Sam grimacing and shifting on his feet, needing to make a move; Dean worriedly looking back at Sam, meeting his eyes and minutely shaking his head, telling Sam to stay put, that it was too dangerous, Pete too volatile, not wanting to risk Sam's safety; Sam's tense understanding, but continued, desperate need to get his brother out of shooting range. When Pete said, "this Dean kid's a friggin' gift – we can pin the whole thing on him," Diana's every fear was finally, painfully confirmed. When Pete continued with the declaration that Dean would be "just one more dead scumbag" Dean's protested "hey!" and Sam's increased tension paled in comparison to her own anger. Because it was "that scumbag" and his brother who had just saved her life, helped her see a whole new layer of the world, and find a killer she had once called a lover. She knew who Dean really was – the one who entrusted her with carefully guarded information, sending her to his little brother, trusting that she would do the right thing, caring about her life before he and Sam even knew that she believed them. And when Pete said that "no one would question it", Diana inwardly shook her head, because _she_ would question it and, more importantly, she wouldn't _allow_ it. She knew how this was going to have to end. So she lowered her gun, giving Pete one last chance to turn things around, feeling Sam shift again behind her, ready to make a move if she wouldn't, safety be damned. And when she did what she had to do, bringing her gun back up and shooting her partner as he took aim at Dean, she still hoped Pete would stay down with that first shot, but he was far beyond reason, not only tackling her off her feet, but grabbing her gun and threatening Sam in mid-move, the young man stopping in a tensely anguished memory of her first view of him in the motel. Then Claire showed up, surprising them all, _saving_ them all….. and Diana shot her partner, her lover, the newly known triple murderer and attempted murderer of two strangers who had saved her life.

Shot him through the heart and ended it all.

As she stood up from Pete's cooling body, Sam's "you doin' all right?" was gentle and honest in its soft concern from where he stood nearby, right at his brother's side. Diana pushed the hurt down and felt some relief at hearing that Claire should be at peace now, a woman she thanked just as much as the Winchesters for stopping this before it got even bloodier. She felt a twinge of sorrow at the incredulous pleasure in Sam's voice as she reasoned how the charges against them should be dropped, the surprise of someone not used to people wanting to help him and his brother. But when she told them there wasn't anything she could do about the St. Louis charges, despite knowing in her heart that Dean's off the cuff shape shifter remark was true, she saw the boys look to each other, that specific flash of worry that signaled one of them was in trouble in their eyes - and she decided right there that she would _not_ be involved in separating them again. So she gave them the chance to "escape" as she turned her back, and Sam, bless him, worried about her losing her job – the same job that had put him and Dean in separate interrogation rooms, had pulled them away from each other for something they hadn't even done. When she told them she wanted them out there, "doing what you do best" she meant it, even if she didn't completely understand what it was they did. She watched something sweetly brotherly pass between them as Dean asked where his car was, saw him plotting something even as Sam shot him a look in a long-suffering, automatic response while assuring her they would improvise instead. She gave them once last, fond smile as she sent them on their way, watching them head to the road - Dean in front, leading the way, checking the path as it split and deciding on a direction; Sam a step behind at his shoulder, watching his back - two practiced, needed, natural roles. Then they turned the corner and drifted just as naturally to walk side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, teasing shoves and all.

So, rather than fearing the Winchesters, as the endlessly repeated news footage was obviously trying to make her do, it led Diana to recall the brothers who had saved her life, brought a murderer to light, and helped her learn about another layer of the world. She hoped Sam and Dean were okay, wherever they were, as they hunted these shape shifting creatures on the TV that were trying to desecrate their true natures - the natures that had led them to save a stranger's, a _detective's_ life, through their arrest and confinement. She hadn't been lying when she told them, "trust me, I'll sleep better at night" knowing they were out there doing what they did. She hadn't had a single bad night's sleep since letting them go. But as the news continued its insistence that those callous murderers on TV were really Sam and Dean Winchester, she found herself up at night, worrying about their safety and the safety of the world without them. It was only when the news declared that the Winchesters had been shot dead in Ankeny, Iowa, that Diana finally breathed again, because she knew, like in Colorado years before, that it was just another version of that improvising they did so well. She knew, in her heart, that they were back in business, doing what they did to keep strangers like her safe, at the risk of what mattered most to them – each other. She turned off the news, smiled fondly as she silently thanked Sam and Dean once more, closed her eyes…..

…..And slept soundly through the night.


	3. Houses of the Holy

Title: Winchesters They Have Known

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Supernatural

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: A series of one-shot outside POVs on the Winchester brothers by episodic characters remembering Sam and Dean in light of the newscasts in 7x06. Open to requests.

Notes: "Houses of the Holy" is one of my favorite episodes and even though Fr. Reynolds is only really in two scenes, there is a wealth of information to be found in his interaction with Sam and Dean, particularly with Fr. Gregory and Sam in the crypt at the end. It was a joy to explore. I am unfamiliar with Texas, and while it sounds like Dean says that he and Sam were from "Fremont, Texas", I went with the city of "Premont, Texas" instead, as it actually _does_ have a "St. Theresa's" Catholic parish according to Google maps. My apologies if I misinterpreted the line. Any recognizable dialogue quoted from the episode does not belong to me. Thank you for reading and thank you to those reviewers I am unable to respond to personally via private message. I truly appreciate your support.

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><p><span>2x13 (Houses of the Holy) – Fr. Reynolds, Our Lady of the Angels Church, Providence, RI<span>

Fr. Reynolds wasn't a man who believed in coincidence - kind of went with the job description - so when he recognized the two young men on the news that morning as he prepared for daily Mass, he knew there had to be a reason. It must have been five years since he had briefly met two brothers with the same names as the misguided, murderous souls on the television; two young men who had walked into his church with an old weariness behind firm, respectful handshakes and unyielding compassion in driven, searching eyes. Sam and Dean had never stayed and joined the parish, but Fr. Reynolds couldn't help but remember them because every time he administered Last Rites since that night, he saw the faces of two men in the back of his mind – Thomas Gregory and Sam Winchester.

And today's Mass was in memory of Fr. Gregory.

_Definitely_ not a coincidence.

When Sam and Dean had walked into Our Lady of the Angels and introduced themselves as regular churchgoers new to town and looking for a parish, Fr. Reynolds knew they were lying. Thirty years of watching subtle body language and sifting through innumerable vocal layers in confessionals and counseling sessions combined with several years of prison ministry had honed his perceptive ability to get to the root of those he served. It was obvious those boys were looking to use him and the church to get answers to something else, and so, despite the fact that it was never his place to judge, Fr. Reynolds was still a man, and couldn't help but test them a bit at first about the parish and priest, an old seminary friend of his, in Premont, Texas. But even as Dean tried to charmingly cover the faltering response that proved Fr. Reynolds was right, followed by Sam realizing they were being called out and redirecting the conversation, the priest in Fr. Reynolds ultimately won out and he was nothing but honest when he told them he was glad to have them. Because they may have been lying about why they _thought_ they came to the church, but Fr. Reynolds knew they probably didn't even realize why there were _really_ there. It wasn't hard to spot a crisis of faith and those boys didn't have to be regular churchgoers for Fr. Reynolds to see that they were drowning in a _massive_ one.

Sam and Dean may not have attended Mass in a long time, but _someone_ had instilled God's presence in them – the respect they showed Fr. Reynolds and the church in their words and actions proved it just as much as the ensuing conversation illuminated their underlying needs. Questions about the murders smoothly transitioned into questions about angels in biblical context, asked in ways that both revealed a baseline theological knowledge and clarified each brother's position along the divide between them. As the discussion about biblical versus "Hallmark card" angels went on, Fr. Reynolds noted the leading phrasing of the questions, the constant little looks shot and shared between Sam and Dean in a silent, practiced dance….and learned three things: that Sam was the one with faith who believed in angels; that Dean, who had given an appreciative quirk of the lips at Fr. Reynolds' "you can expect a miracle, but in the meantime you work your butt off" was the doubting Thomas who wouldn't believe until he saw; and that those two were _definitely_ brothers. Fr. Reynolds may have been an only child, but Fr. Gregory had been one of five brothers and the older priest recognized the subtle jabs, the way Sam and Dean's questions were crafted to get answers to prove the other one wrong, the stolen glances that masked eye rolls, taunts, and responses not suitable for church walls; saw the wealth of shared history and love between them despite their differences at that moment. And Fr. Reynolds found it divinely appropriate that the three of them stood there between the pews discussing the archangel Michael, the "fighter of demons", as Sam and Dean were struggling so deeply with their own demons of inner doubt.

Demons they obviously hadn't planned on discovering, let alone _fighting_, today.

Fr. Reynolds wasn't sure what it was about those two polite, conflicted young men that led to him opening up about Fr. Gregory on the church steps - telling them about how he missed his friend, about his desperate prayers for deliverance and divine intervention from the senseless violence and bloodshed – things he hadn't even told some of his closest friends in the priesthood. Maybe, deep down, Fr. Reynolds was having his _own_ little crisis of faith, one he felt he couldn't consciously acknowledge due to his profession. When Dean initiated the goodbyes, his "Padre, thanks" was respectful and honest as he held out one hand, and Sam's gratitude was warm through his two-handed clasp. But Fr. Reynolds didn't believe Dean's final "we'll see you again" because he had seen the driven purpose in the young man's eyes and knew that the church was far too stationary a place for him and his brother, two lives in constant motion.

Which was why he had been so surprised to find Sam in the church crypt that night. It was the language that had first caught his attention as he was making his rounds – it was rare enough to hear well-spoken Latin these days, let alone so comfortably from someone as young as Sam – and Fr. Reynolds fleetingly wondered if he had spent some time in Catholic School as a boy. But then he saw the candles, smelled the herbs, and saw the unfamiliar altar….and had a hard time reconciling his anger at Sam's admittance that it was a séance with the boy's simultaneously full-body emotional response – the embarrassment and shame that chased across his face; the way he continued to respectfully use Fr. Reynolds' title as he tried to assuage the insult with an explanation that "it's based on early Christian rites if that helps any"; the hunched posture and honest eyes that said it was all a last resort, that he hadn't _wanted_ to do it, but _had_ to for some greater purpose.

And then Thomas appeared, the blinding white light of angelic verse fading into an old friend whose visage Sam had somehow recognized before Fr. Reynolds could.

He may have been an ordained priest and biblical scholar, but he couldn't keep the amazed, reverent surprise from his words."Oh my God. Is that….is that an angel?"

The response was surprise's weary, darker shadow. "No it's not – it's just Fr. Gregory_." _An answer spoken by a young man looking to prove the existence of angels to his brother, voice rough with disappointment, eyes shining and broken.

And all of it, from the murders, to Sam and Dean's first introduction, to that very moment, suddenly came into perfect, clear focus.

Through his own shock at the emotional revelation of Fr. Gregory's spirit and misguided interpretation of prayer and response, Fr. Reynolds was still highly aware of the impact of Sam's presence in the crypt. He noted Sam's lack of surprise at the existence of spirits; the deep, almost fearful disappointment that rocked him when the séance produced Fr. Gregory; the sad, but gentle way he told Fr. Gregory that he wasn't an angel - that he was a man, a spirit, and needed to rest, as if he had uttered those words before; the way Fr. Gregory looked to Sam, _not_ his spiritual mentor, pleading, "but I don't understand" when Fr. Reynolds reminded him that men couldn't be angels; Sam's weary, yet kind "let us help you" in response to Fr. Gregory's overt fear, and the honest compassion, the desire to truly help this man/spirit he didn't even _know_, shining past his personal devastation at the non-angelic presence; and finally, Fr. Gregory looking to Sam's little nod when the older priest asked to give him Last Rites; how Thomas seemed to find some solace in Sam's quiet blessing, his affirmation that it was the right choice to make.

When it was all over, one Thomas had been laid to rest, but Fr. Reynolds feared that a new _doubting_ Thomas had been created in his wake. He looked back to Sam, to the young man who had calmly, quietly, and respectfully stood back, let Fr. Reynolds lead, and helped soothe a stranger to rest beyond all that they knew. The boy was wrecked – grief, disappointment, resignation, and terror warring for dominance on his expressive face, eyes brimming, shoulders hunched painfully inward as he stared at the empty space in front of Fr. Gregory's grave.

Fr. Reynolds tentatively stepped forward. "Would you like me to hear your confession?" he asked quietly, recalling Fr. Gregory's "some people need redemption, don't they, Sam?" and the grimaced blink and tilt of the head that had barely hidden Sam's responding flinch. Sam had given Fr. Reynolds a beautiful gift that night – not only the full restoration of his belief in his faith, but the ability to witness the power of Last Rites in action - words he had believed in _without_ seeing what they did, but ones he cherished even more, and felt infinitely more humbled to be entrusted with performing, now that he _had_ seen. He wanted to try to return the blessing, to gift Sam with the absolution of confession, so that he could find redemption from his sins, whether real or simplyperceived, in the eyes of God.

But Sam shook his head miserably, masking a sniffle behind a rough clearing of his throat. "No thank you, Father," his eyes were still rooted ahead. "I confess every night," he said softly before adding, with a dark, humorless chuckle that felt more like his brother's than his own, "for all the good it'll do."

Fr. Reynolds closed his eyes in mourning for the young man's shaken foundation before asking if there was anything else he could do for him. Sam quietly asked for some holy water and then mutely followed Fr. Reynolds back out to the main part of the church. As the priest handed him the bottle at the foot of the altar, he watched Sam's eyes shift from the cross to the main doors – and his chest clenched as he briefly caught a glimpse of the blurred hazel. Sam's eyes were red, liquid, drowning in raw emotion and need – a look Fr. Reynolds had seen before, in Fr. Gregory's youngest nephew, rocked by a classmate's insistence that Santa Claus didn't exist, right before he ran to his big brother for comfort.

In a day filled with doubts, Fr. Reynolds was nothing but certain as to where Sam needed to be at that moment. So he accepted Sam's respectful goodbye and offered a silent blessing to the hunched back as the young man walked out of the church and back to his brother's solid support.

Even though the memory of Sam and the crypt was irrevocably tied into his administration of Last Rites now, Fr. Reynolds hadn't _really_ thought of Sam and Dean in detail since that night years ago. But when he saw them on TV, his heart immediately ached at the older, harder versions of the brothers he had met. He truly hoped there was some mistake, that it wasn't really them, that their demons hadn't bested them and that the cruel blankness of hellfire in those televised eyes hadn't burned out the seed of faith Fr. Reynolds knew they had both carried. But as much as he wished he could say he _knew_ their goodness from their brief encounter, he hadn't _really_ known them, and men _did_ change – sometimes for the worse.

So Fr. Reynolds remembered the young men he had met and did the only thing he_ could_ do – prayed for the kind, compassionate, searching souls he had known.

No one but God needed to know that the Mass was silently offered for two more names that morning.

He gripped the pulpit, strengthened his voice, and finished the day's intentions. "And for Fr. Thomas Gregory," _and Sam and Dean Winchester_, "for whom this Mass is being offered. We pray to the Lord…"

The voices of the faithful filled the church and rose to the rafters. "Lord hear our prayer."


	4. Faith

Title: Winchesters They Have Known

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Supernatural

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: A series of outside POVs on the Winchester brothers by episodic characters remembering Sam and Dean in light of the newscasts in 7x06. Open to requests.

Notes: I have to admit, this chapter was a bit of a surprise. I had planned on writing 5x17's Pastor Gideon down the road, and was going to do 1x19's Sarah Blake next, but then giacinta's review of Fr. Reynolds' chapter mentioned Roy Le Grange and how the blind faith healer "probably did get a peek at the shining interior light of the brothers' souls." I had never considered writing a chapter on "Faith", but I loved the idea and the challenge behind how a blind person would "see" Sam and Dean. A lot of the brothers' relationship is in visuals – looks, touches, and actions. But there is so much in their voices – their words, tone, and emotional shared history - that, combined with an ability to "see into someone's heart" could paint an equally clear picture of who they were and what they meant to one another. Upon rewatching "Faith", I found that Roy Le Grange is actually a very sympathetic character – as Sam and Dean discovered during the episode, Roy truly believed in God and the healing he was doing – he never knew that his wife was using black magic, and when she died, he would have lost his healing ability without ever knowing why - that it was because of something she had done. I really enjoyed exploring his character and potential future and "seeing" the boys through him. So, thank you giacinta for the recommendation! Quoted dialogue from the episode does not belong to me. Thank you for reading. I truly appreciate your support.

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><p><span>1x12 (Faith) – Rev. Roy Le Grange, Nebraskan Faith Healer<span>

The last six years of Roy Le Grange's life had been marked by loss: his wife, his healing gift, most of his congregation in the wake of a fraud investigation, his health. The cancer came back about a year after Sue Ann's death and without her, there was no miracle – just long years of tests, treatments, and false remissions until it finally spread through every major thoracic organ and into his brain. Hospice workers filled his home with hospital beds, oxygen, and morphine as hope for life was lost to hope for a good death and Roy began a new series of losses: appetite, weight, color, circulation, lengths of consciousness. The hospice team strove to honor his life and routines, but he hadn't been able to bear anyone but Sue Ann reading him the news, so the aides compromised, turning on the TV every morning instead. It was there, in the muddy twilight of morphine and a body slowly shutting down, that Roy recognized the names in that morning's news report; names tied into the one thing Roy _hadn't _lost – his faith.

Faith in the Lord.

And the healing of Dean Winchester.

Roy didn't need to _see_ the news to know something was wrong, just as he hadn't needed to physically visualize Sam and Dean to know who they were. The sound of recorded gunfire underlying the newscaster's litany of death and criminal charges was disturbing, but it was the brothers' _voices_ that were the most frightening. Older and deeper, yes, but the weariness Roy would have both understood and expected replaced instead by a cold, barren sharpness. And it wasn't just the tone that was wrong, it was the _words_ - threats to the people they planned to harm next coming from the supposed mouth of the young man who had wanted Roy to heal strangers over him.

Roy had never felt as close to God as he had in that time following his cancer miracle and subsequent healing ability. He felt blessed beyond measure to be able to assist the Lord in His work and, despite the skeptics that flocked to his services as frequently as the faithful, there was only truth in his routine opening words – "It is the Lord who does the healing here, friends; the Lord who guides me in choosing who to heal by helping me see into people's hearts."

He was a trained minister and counselor, with a natural, moderate gift to see to the heart of others; yet he had never seen people so clearly until he was blind.

Amazing Grace indeed.

Roy had a feeling the service that day was going to be different, and while Dean's muttered comment about people's wallets was not uncommon from the atheists and agnostics who got past security, Roy felt a stirring in his own heart at the voice. He knew that Dean's chagrined apology was more for getting _caught_ than for what he actually _said_, but Roy still laughed it off with a joke about blind men's hearing. He would have moved right on with the service, but the familiar press of directed focus was growing, his attention pulled to Dean like a divining rod. When Roy asked the young man his name, he had to pause for a moment after the reluctant, "Dean" that responded. Because in that one syllable, Roy heard not only Dean's voice, but the entirety of God's prewritten story for him. He repeated Dean's name and nodded thoughtfully. Yes, it was beautifully appropriate. Some of the Bible's greatest miracles were witnessed by its greatest nonbelievers.

When he called Dean up to the stage, the young man surprised him with a hedged, "no, it's okay." Followed immediately by an incredulous, "what are you doing?" that came from Dean's right, a new voice laden with fear and love.

This was certainly a first for Roy. Despite reluctantly admitting that he came to be healed, Dean continued to refuse that very healing, telling Roy, "maybe you should pick someone else."

Roy didn't yet understand that he was hearing more than selflessness and skepticism in those words. But he _did_ know that he couldn't see anyone else's heart in the room over Dean's supernova. And if it was just _Roy_ who was choosing who to heal, maybe he could've moved on, but there was a much greater power in play, one he reminded Dean of with a half-laughed, "I didn't pick you, Dean, the Lord did."

There was another reluctant pause under the surrounding congregation's clapping laughter before the voice at Dean's side rose through it once again - hopeful, excited, desperate, as he pushed Dean to "get up there!"

Dean's boots were heavy on the stage as he slowly trudged up to Roy; a man going to his execution rather than his salvation. And Roy began to see that the voice of the younger man whose side Dean had just left was the only reason Dean was tolerating _any_ of this. A fact Dean confirmed when he told Roy, voice low and honest, "Look, no disrespect, but I'm not exactly a believer."

Roy would have known that had he been deaf as _well_ as blind – it was impossible_ not _to feel the uncomfortable disbelief rolling off of Dean in waves, choking the air around them. Yet there was also a hint of respect in those words, a tiny seed of belief and catechism buried so deeply that Dean couldn't even _acknowledge_ it anymore, let alone nurture it; a seed planted many years ago and long since tested.

Time for it to bloom.

"You will be, son, you will be," Roy smiled. While it was true that not everyone immediately believed in God's existence after a miracle, and Dean would likely be one to question it every way a man possibly could, Roy strongly felt that it would be a beginning; the first step on a long road only the Lord knew, for a spiritual reassessment and awakening at some later time. He took comfort in his response to Dean, words meant to soothe the young man, but Dean surprised him once again. Roy felt Dean's grimace tighten the air around them, heard the slight shift of fabric as he physically pulled back – and realized that Dean hadn't taken the words as the comfort they were intended to be.

He had taken them as a _threat_.

Roy felt Dean shy back further, muscles tensing when the preacher laid hands on him, his head turning slightly back to the congregation - no doubt to the young man that had been at his side - as if the hands attached to that other voice belonged to one of the very few that he trusted and allowed to touch him; a privilege denied most others, judging by the coiled response under Roy's hand, with trained force.

When Dean collapsed to the stage with the healing's completion, that second young voice rose up again from the crowd, the "Dean!" sharp, breathy, worried, with a shaky undercurrent of hope. Roy heard the young man rush up to the stage to Dean's side, his command for Dean to "say something!" urgent, desperate, the guilt of someone who may have gotten a loved one hurt warring with a mix of practiced assessment and a hint of a familiar need - validation. Roy smiled as the voice coalesced into a name deep in his own heart: Sam. The biblical prophet who heard the voice of God as a child, now the quietly faithful brother of a vocal nonbeliever. And with that second name, with the two of them both on the stage so close, Roy finally saw why Dean's heart had nearly blinded a sightless man.

He hadn't been seeing _one_ heart, he'd been seeing _two_. Dean's heart was so bright because it was more than just_ Dean_; it was Dean _and_ Sam, one inseparable soul.

A brilliance mirrored in the brother born to be at his side.

Roy hadn't been surprised when Dean came to the house soon after the healing, "trying to make sense of what happened." He had expected it – a man who relied on the logic of what he saw needed more than just one miracle to change a lifetime of habits. Dean's "hmmm" to Sue Ann's statement that a miracle had occurred was as quietly skeptical as ever, and the conversation predictably skirted an outright discussion of faith and moved to assessing questions about when the miracles began, as if they were a symptom of some greater disease. Roy gladly told Dean his story - about the cancer, their prayers, the coma and waking up blessed with both his own health and the gift to heal others. He could still feel Dean's disbelief, but the young man listened respectfully, as if part of him acknowledged the comfort Roy found in his faith even as Dean personally looked for ways to disprove it.

Then came Dean's final question, his selflessness at the service now clearly just a fraction of what had been going on under the surface. Because his "Why me? Out of all the sick people, why save me?" was a heartbreaking tangle of emotion - confusion threaded with weariness and an even deeper hurt. Hurt that he'd been chosen.

A survivor's guilt.

Roy paused, his own confusion rolling. When he woke to find himself able to heal others, he had immediately seen it as a gift, a blessing. He was honored and humbled to be chosen by God. But Dean…Dean was skittish, hurt, almost _angry_….. his disbelief not so much in the healing ability of Roy or God, but in why anyone would choose to save him.

And there it was.

It wasn't_ humility_ that Dean had shown before he was healed…..it was an honest belief that he wasn't important, that he didn't matter, and thus would never be worth saving. And Roy couldn't believe how he could _possibly_ feel that way; how Dean could think he didn't matter, when both heavenly and human voices shouted his very worth.

Roy tempered his shock to a gentle reiteration of his words at the service. "Well, like I said before, the Lord guides me. I looked into your heart and you just stood out from all the rest."

There was that uncomfortable pause again, a young man unaccustomed to the spotlight, who had never seen himself as anything special even as the Lord Himself did. "What'd you see in my heart?" Dean asked, voice wavering with tightly controlled emotion – the continued confusion now hitched with a subtle breath of fear.

Roy would never be as blind as that boy was right then. How could Dean _not_ see it? Not _feel _it? How could he think he meant nothing when the Lord's plan shone so strongly in his soul? When his inherent goodness overtook his lack of self-worth as he wished for people he didn't even _know_ to be saved instead of him? When his and Sam's hearts flared so brilliantly on that stage together? But most of all, how could he not hear his importance in Sam's voice - in the love, worry, joy, loyalty, and adoration that were directed from little to big brother? How could Dean not see what a blind stranger saw immediately? That Sam's faith was in more than just God – that it was in _Dean_, the brother who was worth everything.

Worth saving.

Roy smiled gently as he pared his answer down to the Lord's words. "A young man with an important purpose, a job to do. And it isn't finished."

A young man with a brother who loved and needed him just as much as the Heavenly Father that Dean denied did.

Roy never forgot those words. As the years passed and the news became disturbingly apocalyptic, he often found himself thinking of Sam and Dean; somehow knowing that they were at the heart of the world's ending, just as surely as he knew whose side they were on.

So when he heard the news that morning six years later, he did what he had always done since his blindness. He listened to the voices, to the words, and sought out the heart he had seen so brilliantly years before. He may have lost his healing gift, but Roy could still see deeper than most. The voices on the television were as empty as they were saturated with malice, the words threatening and wrong from the open book he had met, the young man whose words and tone were never able to hide his true heart. Roy moved past the shuddering wrongness, looked deeper….and saw darkness.

But he didn't despair.

He _smiled_.

Because the news was wrong.

It wasn't Dean's voice. Or Sam's. Because Roy had looked into the voices' hearts and found only darkness; couldn't _see _a heart because there _was_ no heart. No Sam, no Dean, no single, radiant brotherhood.

Roy sighed, relief sweeping through his chilled body. The Devil had many guises, many tricks and soldiers to deploy against those meant to do God's work. So if those abominations on the news were here, it was to try and stop the _true_ Sam and Dean, which meant that they were still on this Earth, the Lord's plan for them still in motion.

Roy smiled softly. Yes, the Lord truly _had_ blessed him in many ways – with a lifelong faith in His goodness, and a small part in ensuring that he left a darkening world with the continued light of hope.

With Sam and Dean's heart.


	5. Croatoan

Title: Winchesters They Have Known

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Supernatural

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: A series of outside POVs on the Winchester brothers by episodic characters remembering Sam and Dean in light of the newscasts in 7x06. Open to requests.

Notes: I was taking notes for a chapter on Susan from "Playthings", ended up watching "Croatoan" again since it was on the same disc, and found myself drawn to what Dr. Lee saw in the brothers as they discovered the Croatoan virus. So, here is her chapter! Quoted dialogue from the episode does not belong to me. Thank you for reading. I truly appreciate your support.

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><p><span>2x09 (Croatoan) – Dr. Amanda Lee, Rivergrove, OR<span>

It took Dean's blatant admission of hours of lying for her to realize that she had never seen a badge. Had never known their last name; hell, had only known their _first_ names from hearing them talk to one other.

Not exactly her finest moment.

But U.S. Marshals or not, it was hard to forget that day, as much as she tried to distance herself from Rivergrove, and Dr. Lee couldn't help but recognize the faces on the news that morning; the strangers that had entered her little town on the winds of disaster. Faces tied into something out of a horror film. Or historical legend.

Sam and Dean Winchester.

In a lot of ways, the killing spree shouldn't have surprised her. She first time she laid eyes on Dean, he had a dead body across his shoulders, and that was _before_ he shot two people in her clinic and nearly shot a third. But the images on the news were still jarring somehow. Wrong. And as the memories resurfaced, she didn't hear the new reporter's words - only Beverly's from five years before.

"_One minute, they were my husband and my son. And the next, they had the devil in them."_

As much as Dr. Lee told herself that she still wasn't dealing with PTSD and survivor's guilt from the almost biblical annihilation of her town, she felt her heart rate immediately jump, breathing accelerating and mouth running dry as she looked at the hardened killers on the news; two men with the devil in their dead eyes.

_Oh God, the virus._

It took a good fifteen minutes before she was able to calm down enough to look at the data clinically and realize that what she was seeing on the news was a different picture. While the Sam and Dean on the screen were certainly focused on killing, it was the cold, calculating, almost calm way they went about doing it that was the biggest clue it wasn't the virus. They weren't trying to make blood-to-blood contact which, like the proliferative drive of most infectious processes, had seemed to be the virus's sole purpose. And they weren't crazed, like wild animals. No, this was premeditated killing for killing's sake, pure and simple. A plan beyond biological spread. A realization that shouldn't have made her feel better yet, for some reason, did.

She wasn't sure what that said about the kind of person she was now.

But if it wasn't the virus, it still left her with the question of what it _was_. While she could never say that she had really _known_ Sam and Dean Winchester, she had spent enough time with them that the news caught her off guard; made her think.

And remember.

Dr. Lee's first images of Sam and Dean were studies in contrast. Sam somehow managed a seemingly impossible balance of towering physically over Beverly Tanner, while never coming across as looming or threatening, guiding the bleeding woman into the clinic, his casted hand lightly rubbing her shoulder, reassuring her softly when she began to cry. Then Dean followed, his sheer presence filling the space Sam, Beverly, and Pam had just vacated, the blanketed corpse of Mr. Tanner over his shoulders. He gave her a clipped recount of an attack and shooting in a jaded, weary tone that spoke of experience, and a hint of macabre humor that she recognized from her own profession, before acknowledging her question of who he was, not with a name, but a title – U.S. Marshal – followed by a subtle reminder of why he couldn't reach his badge. A badge she never demanded to see later; maybe because he had such an inherent sense of authority about him.

While it took five years and jarring news footage for Dr. Lee to recall the horror of Beverly's words about "the devil in them", it had struck Sam and Dean immediately that day, as Dean's quiet "we gotta talk" moved him and Sam from the doorway where they were hovering during Beverly's treatment. When she finished bandaging her injured neighbor and strode out of the exam room to demand answers, she found them standing so close they were practically touching, side-by-side in solidarity and discussion, and Sam continued the caring image he had first presented, by first asking how Beverly was doing, before he and Dean answered Dr. Lee's other questions. As Dean headed for the door, clapping Sam on the shoulder and telling her "my partner will stick around, keep you guys safe", she had no doubt that Dean had confidence in Sam, even as she was shocked to hear that there was something that they needed to be protected _from_, and even _more_ shocked that they didn't yet know what that something _was_. Then Dean was gone, and Dr. Lee looked up at their protector, the comfort of his physical size and Dean's endorsement juxtaposed against the image of his casted arm hanging loosely at his side, shoulders hunched, looking as worried as she felt.

Sam stuck close though; alert and aware through that worry, watching over a clinic of strangers, on guard against whatever it was that prowled Rivergrove. He was standing quietly next to her, studying the dead Mr. Tanner, when she discovered the viral response and odd sulfur-like residue. To her it was odd, a seemingly impossible mystery, but to Sam, it was devastating. Because he looked to the body, then back at her, a slow repeat of "sulfur" darkening his eyes, as if the very word took away all sense of uncertainty.

And that the mystery may have been better.

But even through the heightened weight of his concern, he was immediately in motion when Beverly took her by surprise, screaming like an otherworldly animal. _Like she had the devil in her._ Beverly threw him into the glass cabinet, but Sam shrugged off the blow, moving smoothly out of the shards of glass, unfazed, as if he had done it a hundred times before, grabbing an oxygen tank and taking Beverly down – quick, efficient, yet _human_ – sorrow and guilt chasing across his face as he caught his breath.

Dean's "Sammy, open up!" at the door when he returned with Mark was a surprise - her first sign that there was something more going on between them. It didn't quite feel like a Marshal-to-Marshal nickname, and the towering giant with the casted arm, hunched shoulders, and shadowed eyes didn't really seem like a "Sammy." She couldn't see him with such a childlike nickname - he looked too weighted down to have ever been a kid.

Then suddenly, everything was moving too fast. They were talking about killing Beverly, her next door neighbor, her _friend_; a human being, injured and imprisoned in her clinic. And Dr. Lee couldn't stop it, couldn't do _anything_. Sam immediately asked her if there was a treatment, a cure for the supposed virus, with Dean stepping up and echoing the demand at Sam's side, but all she could do was sob that she didn't even know what "it" _was_. All those eyes, all that focus on her…..sometimes she hated her job, in moments like this, where lives hung on the balance of what she did and did not know, of what people figured she _should_ know, just because she had those two letters after her name. With her response, Dean, Sam, and Mark moved to the utility room, Dean's "Sam" clipped and professional, an entire plan in that single syllable, unvoiced, but understood by its recipient from a lifetime of use. Sam took up a position alongside the door to open it, Dean at the center, gun drawn, not a word of communication needed, and Dr. Lee fleetingly wondered, watching Mark move smoothly with them, if law enforcement training was similar to the military training she knew Mark had from the Marines, or if Sam and Dean had some military experience as well. Once the door opened and Beverly began crying, pleading for her life, telling lies where Dr. Lee would only have seen a familiar face, Mark, solid, Master Sergeant Mark, couldn't do it – gun wavering, tears in his eyes as Beverly hit every nerve. But Dean didn't look at Mark. Or at Beverly. He turned his head to Sam, voice low and hard as he asked, "you sure she's one of 'em?" Emotionless, yet not; words and feelings pared down solely to what he needed to gather the information necessary to make a call no one else wanted to make. Sam's face was a maelstrom of distress – disgust, pain, sadness, worry, guilt – as he nodded minutely, his "yeah" a barely audible sound of nausea, pitched for Dean's ears only. And then, as if that verification was all he'd ever need, Dean stepped forward and shot Beverly Tanner.

The world continued its spiral into madness as Sam, Dean, and Mark began talking about firearms and explosives as if it wasn't completely insane – death and destruction in her little place of healing. She got a small glimpse beyond Sam's sad weight and soft caring nature as the young man suggested they could create their own explosives from her supplies; a reveal that had her vaguely reconsidering how he may have broken his hand. Then Duane showed up and Dean focused in on him as if he knew something the rest of them didn't, his voice hard, sharp, gun unwavering as he told her to look Duane over, interrogating more than asking anything, his barked "sit down!" harshly punctuated by the cocking of his weapon when Duane protested being tied up until the test results came back. It was only Sam's quiet, "Dean, I gotta talk to you. Now," the young man's expression twisted with pain and nausea, that led Dean to relinquish control to Mark - a silent, militaristic transfer of command - as he lowered his gun and followed Sam out.

Dr. Lee's fear only grew when Dean returned without Sam. Not that she thought he had hurt him - something instinctively told her that would only happen over his dead body - but because Sam seemed to be providing some kind of balance for Dean right now; a sort of touchstone of humanity. Because it had been Sam who had pulled the hard, unforgiving Dean out of the room moments before; and because when Dean returned alone, everything exploded. He was cold, predatory, a man who had obviously killed before and with the right reasons could easily do so again, ready to shoot a pleading Duane in a room suffocated by terrified emotion without a blink of remorse, gun focused and ready. She couldn't help her own tears, because she just couldn't know for sure if Duane was infected or not, if she was about to condemn a man to death because she didn't understand a medical impossibility. And yet, even as the tears flowed, part of her _understood _what was happening. In a clinically detached way, she recognized that this was infection control at its most primitive level; that while she was used to isolating patients and targeting the organism, Dean was practicing the more comprehensive solution of killing both the organism_ and_ the host. She wasn't naive enough to think that this hadn't ever happened in history, but it was still terrifying to be part of, despite the solid rationale. Dean's terse "I got no choice" confirmed her thoughts, yet also gave her a glimpse of something else - she could sense a hint of something unspoken in those strained words, twisted within the lines of the tense muscles – something more apology than justification. And then Dean's hands began to tremble, his face twitching through a rapidly building internal fight that threw emotions across his face too quickly for her to catch and name, struggling with the mounting pressure until, whether that internal voice was his or Sam's, he lowered the gun with a breathy "dammit" and left the room.

It was then that she started to realize that Sam and Dean weren't so different after all. She had seen Dean as all hard edges and lines, but she began to understand that it was just ice over the water – frozen and unyielding at first sight, but covering a river that still ran swiftly underneath – emotions, anxieties, memories – an ever-changing, ever-moving flow, teeming with life. A life she figured was as full as the one that had made Sam so pliable; perhaps a series of shared experiences that, rather than creating Dean's stiff, jagged edges, had made Sam hunch inwardly instead, like a black hole of weight collapsing him in on himself. Or like a large target, pummeled relentlessly by an unseen enemy, trying to shrink itself into invisibility.

When she sought them out later, asking if she could untie an infection-free Duane, Sam and Dean were expertly creating explosives from her medical supplies; a destructive chemistry lesson in utter silence. Yet within the silence was a world of communication; a communication she saw as Dean took the question she aimed at him and looked up at Sam, transferring responsibility for the answer. Sam nodded slightly at Dean, both acknowledging the transfer and double-checking the response he should give, ensuring that it was in line with what Dean wanted. When Dean lowered his eyes, hands never ceasing his work, it was apparently in confirmation, and Sam finally looked to Dr. Lee with a verbal translation - "yeah, sure." Two words to sum up a detailed conversation that had happened right in front of her, in a language she'd never speak. It was a type of intuitive understanding and communication she had only seen in spouses, partners, or soul mates – the kind of people who lived as one person for so long that they didn't_ need_ words; could read each other even if deaf, dumb, and blind. She wondered how long they had been partnered.

And then Sam was attacked, and everything changed. He sat hunched around an ice pack over his lacerated chest, eyes on the floor as Dean paced, practically _vibrating_ with tension now – and she wasn't sure which worried her more – that, or the predatory stillness she had seen earlier. Voices rose again, Mark insisting on further infection control, the argument escalating until it happened: "Nobody is shootin' m'brother."

And there it was.

The physical proximity, the unspoken communication and connection, the "Sammy" – they weren't just partners, they were _brothers_.

And that made Dean more dangerous than ever.

Because the way Dean had said those words, the tension shifting into a fighting readiness – it was still cold, still authoritative….. yet different. This was personal now. It was blood, family, fear now fueling Dean's fight – and rather than making him sloppy, the fear only served to make him _more_ dangerous, every line of his body daring someone to challenge what he held sacred. Sam finally broke the tension, interjecting into the heated discussion about his death, telling Dean, "they're right – I'm infected. Just give me the gun and I'll do it myself." And Dr. Lee recognized the compassion she had seen with Beverly, the softness in the voice that spoke to Pam earlier – but there was a deeper love there now; love for his brother. Sam was being practical, understanding the stakes, and simultaneously wanting to spare his brother the pain of fratricide. Dean immediately dismissed the thought with a "forget it", a response Sam seemed to expect as he continued, "Dean, I'm not gonna become one of those things" - an utter refusal to hurt others, to maybe hurt _Dean_, along with a hint of a deeper, unnamed fear at the potential change, something Dr. Lee couldn't place. Dean's "Sam, we've still got some time" was barely hidden desperation amidst the refusal, along with his own flare of that same, intimate fear. But they all knew it was wrong, that Sam didn't have long, and they were all in danger; a truth that Mark was quick to bring up, even as he acknowledged the pain of it being Dean's brother, readying his weapon to take care of the situation, to neutralize this new pocket of infection.

And just when Dr. Lee thought she had seen Dean at his most frightening, he surprised her again. Surprised all of them. She wasn't surprised that _she_ jumped at Dean's "I'm gonna say this one time – you make a move on him, you'll be dead before you hit the ground, you understand me? Do I make myself clear?"…..but it was _Mark's_ reaction that truly terrified her. Because for a brief moment, Mark, Marine Master Sergeant Mark, who had seen and survived hell, had gone silent; pulled back, briefly cowed under the force of Dean's words, recognizing and respecting the deadly intent in the green eyes. Again, it was Sam who brought Dean back, shouting his brother's name to break the argument, protesting when Dean gave Mark the keys, voice breaking as he insisted, "Dean, no. No. Go with them. This is your only chance," – desperate for his brother to survive. She watched Dean's face soften, an almost unrecognizable shift, as he countered Sam's plea - "No, you're not gonna get rid of me that easy," – and she saw a flash of big brother there, in the lopsided little smile that managed to make it through the emotion, the pain of what he knew was coming. He didn't need to say another word, his eyes an open book of response to Mark's insistence he join them – a clear, wordless, "I'm not goin' anywhere." And when Mark said, "okay, it's your funeral", Dean didn't so much as flinch – as if the very idea that his and Sam's funerals would be separate events had never crossed his mind.

Her "I'm sorry. Thanks for everything, Marshals" seemed almost laughable under the circumstances, but Sam smiled painfully for a fraction of a second through the oncoming tears, and Dean casually shrugged off hours of federally convictable lying with raised eyebrows and a humorless quirk of the lips - "oh, actually we're not really Marshals." It was then that she realized she never _had_ followed up on seeing those badges; realized Dean's revelation should have surprised her, yet, somehow, deep down, it didn't. She acknowledged the lie with an "ummm, oh" and turned to leave, Dean's tight little smile making it obvious that he wanted to be alone with Sam. And that's when she realized that all she needed to know about them was right there in front of her, in the one lie that could never pass Dean's lips; the truth radiating from impatient green eyes as the lies fell away and all she saw was a lifetime of love. Finally saw _them_. Dean - the big brother who had watched and guided "Sammy's" growth to the man he was. And Sam - the now taller little brother who still allowed, and treasured, the affectionate nickname.

She didn't know what had happened in the time she was gone, but when she ran back to the locked room to show them the empty streets, Dean met her at the door with two guns, Sam in the background, still on the table, tears streaking his face; tears he made no move to hide as she spoke. After he and Dean had seen the deserted town, Sam ended up hunched on her exam table once again, listening to her incredulous pronouncement that his blood, and the blood of the others infected, was clear. But there was no relief at his apparent immunity. Just like earlier, when she mentioned the word "sulfur" he only looked _more_ worried, as if the sulfur's disappearance from the samples was as frightening as, or worse, maybe even _connected_ to, the disappearance of a town's worth of people. The same worry mirrored in Dean when she told him that Sam was going to be fine. It should have been joyous news – a miracle in the midst of unexplained, unprecedented tragedy. Dr. Lee was happy to see life for both of them.

Yet Sam and Dean took it like a death sentence.

So when she saw the news footage years later, she, once again, was left with more questions than answers. She rationalized that it wasn't the virus, but still couldn't shake the memory of Beverly's "they had the devil in them." She didn't really know _what_ to think, because there were only two things she knew about Sam and Dean for sure – that they were liars, and that there was one thing Dean _couldn't_ lie about. She remembered the raw love on his face for Sam, the fierce protective instinct, the natural move to die with his brother, as if the very thought of leaving Sam to die alone was profane. Remembered Sam's own protective love as he tried to convince Dean to survive, bravely facing the human race's inherent fear of dying alone rather than break Dean with the pain of killing him. And that goodness, that love for one another…..well, the destruction of Rivergrove _had_ been almost biblical. Some said the devil had many faces…and she was pretty sure only something that evil could suppress or destroy the love she had seen, to make Sam and Dean into the men on TV.

So Dr. Lee did the only thing she _could_ do - hoped like hell that the devil didn't exist.

And if he _did_…..

…She prayed that the love she had witnessed was strong enough to overpower Satan himself.


End file.
